The Afterthought of Nagasaki

Seven decades ago, the US dropped one atomic bomb on Hiroshima
and one on Nagasaki, Japan. The journalistic hook of that nice, big 7-0 means
that mainstream outlets had an excuse to look back and consider the decision
to use the nukes. The conclusion remains mixed. There’s some (vital) uncomfortableness
with the idea that the grand old US remains the only nation to use such a weapon
on human beings. But it never feels like a true black mark on the US, because,
well, we won’t let it be one.

It is true some people – and some polls suggest – that the anti-nuke side of things
wins out more and more when we look at the passage of time. Yet, it doesn’t
feel that way when the subject is discussed. Perhaps if you directly ask whether
nuking was justified (a surprisingly low 56 percent say yes in a 2015 Pew Research
Center poll), you may get one type of answer. But even ostensibly neutral history
books that most children use in most schools reaffirm this constant narrative
of justification. The bombing ended World War II, and America did it, and Hitler
lost, and so it must have been good and right. It’s easy to believe this, and
easier still if you don’t spend too much time thinking about it. I read a great
deal of history before I realized that some very war-friendly, establishment
people like Gen. Dwight Eisenhower disputed the necessity of the bombing.

Another, narrower aspect of the question of justification lies with the second
bombing. “Hiroshima” is historical shorthand for the use of atomic bombs on
human beings, the way Waco is shorthand for the tragedy with the Branch Davidians,
and Columbine means (what was once) the most horrifying school shooting. That’s
how humans talk about things. But when we say Hiroshima, what do we mean? Do
we mean the fact of both bombs? Or just the first one? The afterthought that
is the bombing of Nagasaki rather brilliantly sums up the lack of care on the
part of the defenders of the act. Let us say – though
we are wrong – that the first bomb on August 6 is morally acceptable because
because we have a crystal ball that proves a land invasion is otherwise necessary
and it will kill one million people. (Presumably, our crystal ball also tell
us unequivocally that horrifically punishing citizens for the crimes of their
government is all right if you really feel like it. )

Given all of that, what makes the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9 acceptable?
Nagasaki was the last minute replacement for Kokura, which had blessed smoke
and haze cover preventing the dropping of the bomb. Kyoto had previously been
suggested as a target, but was too beautiful. A dozen and a half other cities
were on the list earlier that spring, and Nagasaki was taken off, and then later
hand written on the draft strike order in late July. A decision this momentous
and horrifying was borderline spur of the moment.

Now, the parody news site The Onion actually sums up the Nagasaki situation
brilliantly (except for a predictable French joke). Their headline reads “Nagasaki
Bombed ‘Just for the Hell of it.’” The sub: “second A-bomb would have just sat
around anyway, say generals.” The entire faux article is worth a read.
It’s painfully damning.

Three days is the patience that the US had for killing 40,000 or not. Three
days for the Japanese government to surrender. Three days is how much the people
of Nagasaki were worth. That speaks volumes about priorities. You cannot argue
that this was some cold math problem that cannot be regretted or coo that the
US was doing it to save everyone’s lives when you read about the bumbling,
last minute journey to drop Fat Man on Nagasaki. This is brilliantly relayed
in a recent New Yorker piece
written by nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein. The whole piece is essential
reading, but two details that stuck out to me were the following. The warning
leaflets that hawks point to even in casual debate about the issue as proof
the US meant to preserve some life? Those warnings of a terrible weapon to come?
They came on August 10.

Wellerstein also has a blog post from two years ago which asks
“Why Nagasaki?” In it he goes over theories not
as to why the city was picked, but why another nuke was dropped at all. “No
really, we mean it” is the official version. But as Wellerstein wisely notes,
this is silly. Did the US expect the Japanese to think this impossible new
weapon had been a fluke? Some kind of magic incantation? That’s a terrifyingly
weak excuse for killing so many people – making sure they EXTRA got the point.
So indeed is one theory that both plutonium and uranium bombs needed to have
proven they were worth the Manhattan project’s enormous cost. Wellerstein doubts
that one, but it certainly has a ringing confirmation bias for those against
the military industrial complex.

Wellerstein suggests that though Nagasaki almost escaped unscathed:

“To stop the atomic bombing
would have been the unusual position. Go back to that original target order:
the only distinction is between the “first special bomb” and the “additional
bombs,” not a singular second special bomb.” And in his
New Yorker Piece, he also notes that Truman appears to have been uncomfortable
destroying another city full of “all those kids.”

So there you go. There were only two
nukes dropped, and none since. It could have been worse. But this was
not a country weighing competing interests like stopping Imperial Japan and
not slaughtering people. This was “hit ‘em again to make sure they’re down.”
A week would be too long to wait? Ten days? A month? It seems that even people
willing to do something as horrific as nuke a city could wait a little bit to
see if they must do it again. But, no. Because if it is on the table – if you
have just done it – then you will do it again. The Onion wasn’t kidding.

And so they say two nukes ended the war, but what if the US had stopped at
one? How do we know that wouldn’t have worked? Or they had needed five, or ten,
or twenty nukes, all of Japan in a rubble? Would that have been just as necessary
as two? That’s the margin of error war works with: scores of thousands of lives
lost. Maybe we needed to do it once, maybe twice. One or two bombs. Three if
we can finish that last one. The lack of specificity which doomed Nagasaki is
haunting, and it proves that the hawks are guessing just as much as anyone else.

Lucy Steigerwald is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and a columnist
for VICE.com. She previously worked as an Associate Editor for Reason magazine.
She is most angry about police, prisons, and wars. Steigerwald blogs at www.thestagblog.com.